If you ever had any doubt that Donald Trump was right that the mainstream media is the enemy of the American people, CNN corrected your inexplicable inability to comprehend this painfully obvious truth by choosing July 4th to threaten some guy for daring to make fun of Its Medianess Holiness. Apparently, if you dare defy the media it has the right to wreck your life - as long as you are an anti-Obama rodeo clown or a meme-making rando on Reddit. If you are a zillionaire like Anthony Scaramucci with the bucks to hire top flight law firms and Gawkerize its lame carcass - which I would have done in a split-second if CNN had lied about me the way it did about him - then you get a free pass.

Instead of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, CNN's new motto is apparently “Confront the afflicted and settle with the comfortable.” Every time I see the CNN logo I hear James Earl Jones's voice intoning “This is CNN, and we suck.”

But actually, maybe we should all thank CNN for its work guaranteeing Trump’s second term.

Now, before we move on, someone is going to point out that the meme guy is kind of a jerk and said stuff that offends decent people. So? How is that the point? This is a multi-billion dollar media corporation using all its power to threaten an individual into not criticizing it. How is that ever okay? And don't pretend for a minute this media extortion precedent gets limited to outlier Reddit guys. Normal Americans are next.

The media babbles about “principles,” but as soon as they become inconvenient then out the window go those precious “principles.” A silly wrestling gif supporting the president “promotes violence against the media,” but a week before that funding a play where President Trump is stabbed to death was artful political commentary? That’s my objection to all this recent “principles” talk. They are never actually promoting “principles.” It is always a scam and a pose designed to stop other people from acting in, or defending, their own interests. These “principles” never, ever require the people allegedly holding them to not act in, or defend, their interests.

CNN has all sorts of “principles” it uses to bludgeon its opponents, none of which ever seem to limit CNN’s own actions. How convenient.

President Trump sees this and not only calls it out but refuses to back down even an inch in the face of the media’s predictable “Oh, well, I never!” campaign of conservashaming. That's why we see wussy Fredocon Republicans like Jeb! and Kasich trotted out to sadly shake their heads; they're always willing to submit to this nonsense and obediently trash conservatives in the name of principles that they never, ever apply to the media or to their liberal string-pullers. But Trump doesn't play that, and whatever his other faults, it's glorious.

Normal Americans are receptive to Trump’s attacks on the media because they hate the mainstream media too. They are now woke to the unarguable fact that the mainstream media is almost entirely composed of liberal activists who hate normal people and who see absolutely nothing wrong with using their platform to aggressively promote a leftist agenda, all while presenting themselves as non-partisan public servants.

It’s all a lie, and we know it, and beyond the hate directed at us, having the hypocrisy of it rubbed in our faces is even more galling. You know, if you want the prestige and honor due a nonpartisan, objective truth teller, you need to actually be a nonpartisan, objective truth teller. If you won't do the hard work of doing that, then you don't get the benefit. You want respect? Try earning it.

But the media doesn't want to have to do that. It wants its cake, and to eat it too, and further, it wants to make us bake it lots of cakes and write on them “Best Wishes Upon Your Voluntary Transformation From Boy To Girl By The Mere Power Of Your Wanting To Because That Is Totally A Thing And So Is Global Warming And Russians.”

It’s reassuring to see the near universal contempt for CNN’s creepy extortion gambit, and perhaps by the time this column runs the CNN brain trust will have listened to their general counsel, who has probably aged 15 years in the last 15 days, and apologized, retracted, and fired everyone associated with this unbelievable idiocy.

Or it might double down, because CNN's innovative ratings strategy appears to be focused entirely toward identifying and pursuing a smaller, more select audience composed solely of members of the elite Complete Idiot demographic.

Whatever. I just want CNN to collapse, and I want to laugh at its twitching corpse. And then superstars like noted legal scholar Chris Cuomo can focus on important things, like his new puppy Woofy.

Perhaps the best part of all of this is the indisputable fact that CNN’s own actions have validated every bad thing Trump has ever said about the lying media. That he was totally and completely correct about CNN's moral bankruptcy makes it all the sweeter.

As much as it is a joy to see CNN shred its pretenses and act openly as we always knew it wanted to, this sort of thing is not good. There is a cultural war underway already, and this only makes it more likely to get worse. When the media takes a side, it makes the other side its enemy. That’s a conscious choice. And CNN seems happy to help feed the fire by embracing its liberal fascist id.